Public Citizen, Inc. v. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the United States of America, City of Tucson, Arizona, Intervenor

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge STEPHEN F. WILLIAMS.

STEPHEN F. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge:

Last summer the Nuclear Regulatory Commission published a document it styled a “policy statement” endorsing regulatory exemptions for practices that expose the public to radiation in such minute amounts as to be “below regulatory concern”. Below Regulatory Concern; Policy Statement, 55 Fed.Reg. 27,522 (1990) (“BRC Policy Statement”). The petitioners, a group of 29 citizen, consumer and environmental organizations as well as the State of Maine, claim that the BRC policy is in fact a substantive…